The Dixiecrats, Ruby Bridges

SNCC

(Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee)-a group established in 1960 to promote and use non-violent means to protest racial discrimination; they were the ones primarily responsible for creating the sit-in movement

In the 1950s the Dixiecrats didnt continue as a party but continued to oppose

1957- Senator Thurmond held the longest filibuster(24 hours and 18 minutes) in an attempt to prevent the Civil Rights Bill

Hospital Workers Protest-spring of 1969

450 women employed by the Medical College of South Carolina and the Charleston County Hospitals' held a strike that lasted three and a half months. They were protesting low wages and racism in the workplaces.

Briggs v. Elliot

Court case over the equality of Clarendon County Schools. Led to the Brown v Board decision

Strom Thurmond

Democratic governor of South Carolina who headed the State's Rights Party (Dixiecrats); he ran for president in 1948 against Truman and his mild civil rights proposals and eventually joined the Republican Party.

1954-The Supreme Court issues its ruling in Brown v. Board of Education

Governor James Byrnes avoids desegregation by pouring money into black schools.

Truman was aware of racial tension within USA

Had to tread carefully because Dixiecrats would oppose reforms

In 1960s election, John Kennedy had to be careful to not upset Dixiecrats

Kept civil rights low on his agenda and focused on discussing foreign affairs

Jim Crow Laws

Limited rights of blacks. Literacy tests, grandfather clauses and poll taxes limited black voting rights

The Black Power Movement

Not about giving black people the power "over" whites; it was about making black people feel like they had any power at all.

Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats

SC governor; southerners did not like Truman's proposed civil rights bill and they went and formed a "Dixiecrat" party and ran Thurmond for president.

Many dixiecrats joined the White Citizens Councils

Some even left the Democrats and joined the Republicans

1948 Presidential election

Split the Democrats

Essie Mae Washington-Williams

Strom Thurmond's and Carrie Butler's daughter.

Carrie Butler

The Thurmond family's African-American maid-she was 16 and Strom was 22 when they had Essie Mae. He supported the child, but did not claim that the child was his. After his death, Essie Mae came forward that Strom was in fact her biological father.

Ruby Bridges

The first African-American child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South (New Orleans)

Dixiecrat

The term to describe white southern Democrats opposed to civil rights legislation

Dixiecrats formed their own political party

Won more than one million votes in the 1948 election